


Give me Time

by deardracula



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-26
Updated: 2014-06-02
Packaged: 2018-01-02 17:36:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1059642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deardracula/pseuds/deardracula
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean couldn't remember the last time his shoes were completely dry or the last time he felt grounded in his skin, but he smiled because Sam needed the humanity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> title courtesy of Janis Joplin

There were thoughts running through his head that would make his mother cry. A pit, stony and hellish and unforgivable, opening up in his chest, dipping into his stomach and swallowing him whole. He wanted to close it, stitch it up like he would with any other jagged wound that cut itself across his flesh, but it was splitting open wider whenever he moved and he was drowning in it. Every time he closed his eyes a mop of brown hair danced in front of his lids, a face young and fresh and newly fourteen.  
  
He kept himself busy with porn and booze and stolen cigarettes: a demon sick of sin, a poet in the trenches. There were cars to fix and girls to fuck and absolutely no time to spend worrying about his dumb kid brother.  
  
But Sam was everywhere: in his bed, in his car, in his head, under his skin. He had eyes that knew all his secrets, hands that had pulled him from death. And he wanted to feel those hands everywhere, across every inch of him because who else was better qualified?  
  
There was a lot going on in his head, a lot he had to process and with his brain pressing up against his skull like it was, it was hard to remember the little things. So he was late. Late for life, but more importantly, late for picking up Sam from school and when he pulled up to the curb in front of the building, his brother was sitting there on the steps, drowning in a thrift store sweater, all pale skin pulled tight over thin bones. He glared at Dean through the passenger window as he pushed himself off the sculpted concrete, his pants too short and his shoes too tight. The car was swirling in a hurricane of artificially heated air as Sam yanked it open, clattering bones folding themselves into the vinyl seat. “You're late,” he hissed, his backpack on the floor against his shins.  
  
“I know, sorry.” Sam didn’t answer, the energy he had stored for nagging his brother about attendance and the importance of school all run out because he knew Dean wouldn’t listen. Never did. “Do you want to go get some coffee – hot chocolate? My treat.”  
  
“I have homework,” he was curled in on himself, facing the window as Dean pushed the column into drive and started down the road, the car below them straining against the brakes, needing to go faster, longer, further.  
  
“Oh come on –”  
  
“It’s a science project, I don’t have time.”  
  
“A project? It’s the beginning of the year.” Sam stayed quite again, something that was starting to drive Dean crazy. “You’re mad,” he stated after a moment, the fluids in the engine pumping loudly against the silence.  
  
“It’s your life, why should I care what you do with it.” Dean didn’t push him, just let him stew there in his own teenage angst because he was Sam Winchester, and Sam Winchester just needed time.

* * *

  
  
Their dad had left them in a halfway dilapidated house somewhere in West Virginia with enough money for a gallon of milk and a tarp just in case the roof started leaking again. They had the twenty dollar air mattress that had always seemed to be folded away in the trunk of the car inflated in the only room with windows. Dean let Sam have it, sacrificing himself to termite bitten floorboards and moth bitten blankets as he prayed to a god he didn’t believe in to blow the rain clouds away from their broken mess of a life.  
  
But it did rain, long and hard and violent, thunder shaking the foundation of the house, lightening igniting irrational fear in their chests. Dean couldn’t remember the last time his shoes were completely dry or the last time he felt grounded in his skin, but he smiled because Sam needed the humanity.  
  
He kept driving Sam to school, parking and walking in, making sure he was there at lunch and at the car with a bag full of books by the time the final bell rang, but missed everything in between.  
  
His lungs were eternally filled with smoke, tar as good as oxygen only heavier, more substantial, better for his sanity. He had a girl on his hip without falter, soft and curved and sweet. He clung to her because he could feel the devil’s hold around his ankles and if he let her go, there would be nothing to keep him from being dragged under the crust of the earth.  
  
She didn’t need to have a name or a face or a story, just hair longer than his own and artificial sweetness clinging to her skin. He just needed her to be anyone but Sam.  
  
He didn't know how to tell his brother he was dropping out of school, already had really, minus the formality of signing a form. Sam was happy ever since he thought Dean was at school everyday though because he had this self-constructed picture in his head of Dean sitting in a classroom with unflattering florescent lights staining his skin and books sprawled out in front of him. That wasn't his life. It never fit him right, like poorly secured dentures trying to make your life easier, give you a brighter future but it just turned out to be more trouble than it was worth. He did fit into the back seat of the Impala though, no denture glue required. He had that nameless girl, pulsing and alive beneath him, music loud enough to pop his eardrums as he waited to get older. Sam was happy, Sam was proud and that was all that really mattered.  
  
“How was school, Sammy?” Dean smiled at him brightly, leaning against black painted metal, his backpack slung over one shoulder as he watched Sam cut through the crowd.  
  
“I had gym today. I hate gym.” The car rocked under their weight as Dean pealed off his jacket and threw it in the back. “Were you smoking in here?” Dean watched his nose crinkle and his face scrunch as he started the car.  
  
“Yeah, maybe.”  
  
“Dad's going to kill you.”  
  
“We'll drive with the windows down. Air it out.” Sam huffed and pulled a box of tapes out from under the seat, plastic clicking as he searched for a sound track to his mood. Eric Clapton unplugged. He flashed the cover at Dean, waiting for a nod of approval before sticking it in the player.  
  
He drove past the house without taking his eyes off the road, Sam glanced at him but said nothing, his fingers curling around the seat belt cutting across his chest. Dean kept his foot on the accelerator, steady weight under his sole as he wound through dirt roads, cutting between fields of corn and pasters of livestock, all while Sam kept quite and Clapton kept singing and Dean struggled to keep himself grounded.  
  
It wasn't until they left town and a quarter tank of gas evaporated into thin air did Sam speak up, sleepy and slow, “where are you running, brother?”  
  
“I'm running from you, baby boy, but you're right here.”  
  
“Running from me?” Dean didn't answer, didn't know why he had said anything to begin with.

* * *

  
  
He dreamed of skin and fingers and wide, green eyes much like he had every night before. He was laying somewhere, nowhere, with his brother, with Sam. Always with Sam. And they were touching at the shoulders, hips, fingertips as they looked up at a deep purple sky, impossibly big, as endless as the feeling in the middle of his eyes. But Sam was shirtless and that scared him. Scared him because he couldn't help but look at his thin frame and see his skin pulled tight with goose flesh and want to press his tongue against it and see if it tasted as sweet as it looked. If he would be able to feel each raised bump against his pallet.  
  
He woke up and wanted to cry. He shot towards the bathroom to burn the dead taste out of his mouth with minty paste and drown himself in murky tap water. He cupped his hands under the spray in the sink before pressing his face down into the palms of his hands until he couldn't breath, until he couldn't feel. Water was dripping off his nose and the ends of his ears, his head rolling against linoleum, not even hearing Sam break through the locked door. He hated the feeling of his arms around his waist, hated the way they made his heart beat on his tongue like a dying hummingbird. He couldn't tell if he was actually crying because his face was soaked in a cheap substitution for something blessed, something that would burn. Sam was down on his knees beside him, his hair beautifully unkempt, his hands as big as that purple sky under Dean's jaw, holding him like he was made of dry sand. “Don't look at me like that Sammy, I can't take it.”  
  
"Don't look at you like what, Dean?"  
  
"I don't know. I don't know I just need to get out of my fucking head," he shoved him aside and stood on liquid knees, bracing himself against the counter feebly. "I'll just - I'll see you later."

* * *

  
  
It didn't get much easier after that, he didn't expect it to. He kept Sam at arms length, hoping that he wouldn't take it the wrong way, hoping he didn't think Dean hated him because god, he really didn't. He flinched every time Sam touched him, refused to meet eye contact, stayed out late just to avoid time alone with him. He was diving deep into an ocean of amber liquor and the further he went, the harder it was for him to see the sunlight, which was a good thing, at least in his book.  
It was impossibly hard to keep Sam away from him. He was two feet away when they slept and just a foot away when they were in the car and inches apart in the mornings when they brushed their teeth, elbows knocking as they fought for the part of the mirror that wasn't stained and speckled with black age. And Sam was fourteen, he needed to be taught things even when he was too proud to ask.  
  
Dean walked past the bathroom on his way to bedroom on a Wednesday night and Sam was standing in front of the mirror with a unreadable look on his face and a razor in his hand. "What's up?" Dean hooked his hand around the doorframe, Sam's eyes still stuck on his reflection.  
  
"It's just," he ran a hand over his chin and sighed, dropping his fist onto the counter, the plastic razor clicking loudly.  
  
"Oh," Dean stepped up beside him, "well it's not that hard, just got to watch out for the neck. Chin," he pointed to the sharp angles of Sam's face.  
  
"I'm going to cut myself," Sam eyed him in the mirror.  
  
"No you're not. Here," he snatched the can of shaving cream off the counter and shook it. "I'll show you,"  he shot some into his hand and shoved the can to Sam who followed reluctantly. He watched with a smirk as Sam pressed his sudsy palms to his cheeks with a grimace. "Just take it slow," Dean slid his own razor down his face, his mouth twisting to give him a better angle. Beside him, Sam hissed and Dean watched a hot stream of blood cut through mountains of white foam.  
  
"I told you I was going to cut myself." Sam bowed his head, his shoulders collapsing.  
  
"I cut myself shaving all the time, come here," he twisted Sam towards him, "I'll help you out." He took Sam by the back of the neck, steadying him as Dean rinsed off the razor in the sink. "Just got to mind the pressure," Dean said over the sharp scrape of patchy teenage facial hair.

  
They were close. Too close. Closer than Dean had let himself get to Sam in a long time and his hands were shaking but he fought to keep them stable because he had a razor to his brother's throat and the last thing he needed was to let the feeling of Sam's breath against his skin get to him. He focused on the distant crackle of bubbles popping on his face and the slid of the razor against Sam's jaw but it didn't help because his hands had stopped and his eyes had gravitated towards Sam's mouth and stuck there. Sam's throat fluttered as he swallowed, too nervous to move against the cheap razor so he croaked, "Dean," coarse and broken, resembling a question but far enough away from one that Dean took it as an invitation to hold himself closer, his eyelids half-mass, their noses brushing. He held himself there for a moment, a second, before slotting their mouths together in a clumsy, shaving-cream-slick mess.

  
There were hands on his chest, those big, wonderful hands shoving him away before Sam's broken cry wound the tape in his head forward, catching him up. "What the fuck?" He had foam under his nose, a white flag across his bottom lip from the cream on Dean's face and he watched him turn away, wide eyed and disgusted as he stumbled backwards, the backs of his knees hitting the lip of the bathtub before he fell into the porcelain coffin.


	2. Chapter 2

 

Dean had a good habit of ignoring his problems, and a very graceful, very tactful habit of running away. He could do both simultaneously, which was usually required, and when it came to running from and ignoring a certain person, it was never very hard because he hardly ever slept in the same town twice. But when the person was there no matter which way he looked, when the person's body was growing right into the passenger seat of his car, it was hard for him to turn the other way.  
So he ignored it, of course, pretended it never happened and kept driving Sam to school and pretending he had homework and fixing him cereal every morning without fail. Sam didn't say anything, wouldn't even if he had the nerve, Dean knew that for a fact, so he played along and ate his blasphemous corn puffs while they both pretended the air between them wasn't like knife blades to their throats.  
They were sitting around something that might have been a kitchen table in a past life while Dean read the Sunday comics and Sam scribbled out math problems from a school issued textbook. His eyes wouldn't focus on the speech bubble above the cartoon tiger's head though because Sam had a razor thin coagulation of blood across his cheek that was calling Dean's attention like a landing signal officer. "Aren't you sick of homework yet? It's the weekend, let's do something," Dean threw the paper down on the table and rocked back in his chair. The pencil in Sam's hand stilled as he blinked slowly, unsure.  
  
"Like what?"  
  
"We can go to the drive in. We haven't been to one of those in a while."  
  
"The drive in?" Sam eyed him suspiciously and Dean dropped his gaze, shrugging jaggedly.  
  
"Just an idea."  
  
"Yeah okay," he tucked his chew toy of a pencil behind his ear and stood up with his empty bowl, setting it in the sink and adding to the jungle of festering plates and spoons, pots and pans. "But it's like, ten thirty in the morning."  
  
"Then, I guess we'll wait."  
  
"Yeah, I guess we do," he circled the table to stand in the doorway, his frame thin and willowy against the exposed beams in the living room behind him. "I'm going for a run," he announced with a reassuring nod to himself and a firm pat against the door frame before he disappeared.

 

* * *

  
Dean had this feeling in his hands like they were going numb, but lighter, like they were solely defying gravity. All those invisible needles were wedging themselves under his skin, making it impossible for him to do anything but pace violently until Sam got back.  
  
There was a dart board on the back of the door of their bedroom with two darts stuck in the red felt, rust eating away that the metal like cancer. He rolled them in his palms as he tried to will his nerves to life again, the sharp points tearing his fingertips raw. He couldn't focus on the bulls-eye in the center of the board but he threw anyway, blinding hitting the wooden door with repetitive pounding.  
  
Sam had been gone too long. Too long for Dean to believe that he was actually going for a run. He thought about going to go look for him, but what if he found him in a park or at some diner and he had to stand there and watch his brother's face fall in disgust because Dean couldn't take a hit? It would kill him.

  
So he took a shower, water hot enough to steam and boil and strip his flesh free of all the godless things crawling around inside him and the phantom feeling of iron bars encircling his chest – tight and unyielding – as they squeezed the life out of him like toothpaste from a tube. But as much as he hoped and wished and _willed_ any part of himself to change, he was still being held prisoner inside his own head and its hard to push things out of such a high security cell once they've found their way in.

His skin was stained red and angry under the heat of the spray and he half prayed it would bubble and spill right off his bones. He had his head pressed against freezing tile, words slipping out of his mouth that sounded like 'you're not' but tasted like 'you're sick'. He was thinking too hard, the pound of water on his shoulder barely recognizable against the mossy green eyes in his head that were so similar to his own, scorched through him like forest fires and cursed graves and Nazi planes over England.

There was the resonating slam of a door somewhere outside and Dean shut off the shower, throwing a towel around his waist before stepping out into the bedroom. “Sam,” he balled his fist in the thin material hanging off his hips.

“Hey,” Sam didn't look at him as he dug through his bag, his hair pushed back off his face, black and sticky with sweat.

“Hey.” Dean was staring down at the floor like a dumb kid, his throat constricting and a thick fuzz falling over his vision as he studied his feet, blaring red against old planks of wood.

“You left me some hot water, right?” Sam asked as he stepped around him and closed the door without waiting for an answer.

“There wasn't much when I started,” Dean muttered to the echo of a slamming door.

He didn't want to be there when Sam got out. Didn’t want to hover in the other room while Sam rummaged through his bag with a towel around his waist, blushing from the chest up because he thought his brother would make another pass at him. So he left, again, always leaving, never making amends. There was laundry to do, which settled his conscience for a brief moment as he started the car and drove in the direction of the laundromat he may or may not have seen on their way into town.

He had a personal connection with John Bonhan, owing the man his sanity because his beats were meant to brainwash and purify and Dean had always counted on that luxury to be there because he knew it would never die.

There was a woman and her four children running around the starkly lit laundromat when he stepped inside with an old football bag slung over his shoulder that stung like the metallic tang of blood. He skirted around them to claim the end machine as his own, screaming children something he hoped to avoid. He had a sock full of quarters and a life time to kill, so he loaded colors into the machine like he was suppose to, unlike the past few times he had taken on this chore and shoveled everything into one over-sized load because efficacy beat accuracy any day.

“What's this from?” His heart kicked for a second when an unabashed voice announced itself from down at his knees. “Is that blood? My dad was watching this show on the TV one time and I watched this guy die–“

“Shouldn't take life lessons from a television show, kid.” Dean snatched the stolen shirt out of the little girls hand and pushed it down into the metal barrel. He closed the lid, making it loud and final in hopes of scaring her away, but she was still there by his knees when the echo stopped, staring up at him with big brown eyes and goddamn bows in her hair. “Anything else I can help you with, stretch?”

She just shrugged and shook her head, rolling her ankles as Dean propped a foot up against the pale yellow paint of the washing machine. “Those your siblings?” He jerked his chin to the herd of kids running circles around a tired middle-aged woman trying to pay for soap. She nodded, turning to rest her foot up on the metal in a mirror image of Dean. “How do you like them?”

“They're alright.”

“Just alright?”

“I'm the oldest,” she said like it explained any other questions he might ask.

“Guess we're one in the same then, rug-rat.” The machine behind then bounced and jerked as mass-produced mechanics worked low-budget fabric softener into their cloths.

There was a panicked hiss from behind them and they both turned to look as the woman waved her back over with a glare. “I'm not suppose to talk to strangers,” she explained.

“That's probably a good idea.”

He watched her walk back to her family for second before the timers on the machines behind him buzzed, blaring and obtrusive.

 

* * *

 

As much as he would have liked to stay there in that laundromat for the rest of the day or the rest of the year or the rest of his life, he had to go back.

The clean cloths in the back seat made the entire car smell unfamiliar and generic and soft but he kept the windows up because maybe, if he was lucky, the fumes would kill him.

He parked under a tree at the front of the house because it was hot outside and his hated the burn of sun-baked leather against the backs of his thighs. Sam was sitting on the front steps with a book open across his knees and one of Dean's Iron Butterfly t-shirts pulled over his chest, barely looking up when he stepped out of the car. “Homework?” Sam shrugged and Dean sucked his teeth. He stood in front of him for a long moment, his shadow falling across the pages. “Maybe we should talk about it – ”

“Nothing to talk about.”

“Sam, you have to know that I tried – I'm trying. God I'm trying so hard – ”

“You don't have to try Dean, you just have to have a little self-control, Jesus Christ.” He slammed his book shut and stood up. “You can't be this fucked in the head, you just can't be.” He scrubbed his free hand over his face, “Look, I just want to forget this ever happened, okay? Could you please just – please just go back to being my brother.”

At ten o'clock, Sam said he had plans and left without a backwards glance at Dean. Maybe Sam had a right to his privacy and maybe Dean was a little obsessive, but he was out of booze and the TV had a fist sized hole through the screen from a former occupant's fit of rage, and the only good idea pumping through his head was to go to the damn movie by himself and if he saw Sam on the way there, then it was nothing more than a coincidence. 


	3. Chapter 3

  


At dark, the florescent lights from a fifties themed diner shone brighter than the New Mexican sun. At a place so blaring and obnoxiously obvious, Dean was almost certain Sam had picked it just because he knew Dean would look there first. And just like he had probably planed it, he was sitting in a booth next to the front window with a girl in pigtails and braces, a milkshake equip with two straws sitting on the table between them. He hadn't spoke of said girl since they moved into town. He had spoken of _any_ girl matter of fact, so Dean wondered if he scrapped up the first one who would answer his call and had taken her out to dinner.

He wondered how Sam was paying for it. Maybe he had some secret money stashed away somewhere meant for situations just like the one Dean had forced him into.

It had been twenty minutes since Dean had pulled into the parking lot, idling in a space that had a clear view of the window and his brother. He knew Sam knew he was there. It was obvious by the way he was squirming and squinting in a desperate attempt not to look out into the lot. Dean didn't care if he knew, though. He didn't care that he looked like some sort of crazed serial killer glaring holes into his next victim as he sat in his car, eyes slitted and eyebrows settled low and heavy. He wanted Sam to know he was onto his bullshit. If they couldn't talk to each other, if they couldn't communicate in ways that weren't passive aggressive and malicious, especially since they were together twenty-five hours a day, then yeah, Dean could play along. Would play along.

He waited thirteen more minutes before he shoved the stick shift into drive and headed back towards the house, and it was forty-seven minutes after that when Sam arrived, steam practically poring out of his ears. “Who gives you the fucking right?” he bellowed, slamming the door so violently the screen teetered off its frame.

“Don't know what you mean, Sammy,” Dean sat back in one of the straight back chair at the kitchen table, cracking open a beer and taking a quick sip before Sam snatched it out of his hand and threw it down on the table.

“Stalking me? Really Dean?”

“Well we did have plans-”

“Things changed when you fucking jumped me the other day!”

“I didn't jump you. Just forget it, you said it yourself: there's nothing to talk about.”

Sam scoffed, crossing and uncrossing his arms before turning and locking himself away in their shared bedroom.

 

* * *

 

Dean gave himself enough time to get good and drunk before he tried to go to bed. The door was locked and he stared at the knob for a long time before trying again. “Damn it Sam,” he slurred, pounding on the door.

He stood there for a few more minutes, tottering on the balls of his feet before the door was pulled open and Sam was standing there in front of him. “Why'd you lock the door?”

“To keep idiots like you out,” he snapped, carding his hand through his hair before curling back up on his mattress.

Dean didn't know how long he was laying there with his eyes close, but he knew he hadn't fallen asleep. He remembered listening to Sam's snoring for a while, but it seemed to have stopped some time ago and now the mattress Sam was sleeping on groaned under the weight shift as he rolled over or sat up.

Dean kept his eyes closed, not wanting to see how close Sam was because he could feel his brother's eyes on him and he could hear his bare feet hit the floor. There was the soft hum of conscious breathing above him and he didn't know why he kept his eyes closed. “So what did it mean Dean?” Sam whispered. “Do you like... _like_ me or something?” He paused when he didn't get an answer. “I know you're awake, come on just fucking answer me.”

 

* * *

 

A similar sequence of events happened the next night, and the next night, and the night after that, until Sam broke the routine. Dean had held up his end of the bargain though, getting just as drunk as he had been every night before and ignoring all of his brother's questions that he had thought to wake up and ask at three in the morning, just like ever night before.

The entire week leading up to Wednesday night had been muggy and humid. The air was stagnant, almost too thick to breathe. Dean hadn't even bothered getting up for school that week. He knew he was a drop out, Sam knew he was a drop out and he just didn't have the energy to keep up the charade anymore, waking up at six in the morning just wasn't worth it.

But when Sam got back from school late, Dean had already started his nightly drinking. His eyes followed his brother's frame as it slouched through the living room and closed itself away into their bedroom without so much as a nod in Dean's direction. That was fine though, Dean wasn't expecting much more than he was getting.

It was still early when he decided to call it a night, barely ten thirty. Sam was curled up on the mattress, a stiff wool blanket pulled up over his shoulders. Dean watched him for a long moment, his eyes following Sam's chest as it rose and fell and his eyelids flutter. He wasn't asleep and Dean almost called him on it before deciding against it because he had a strong feeling that he wouldn't get an answer.

So without a word, he pulled off his jeans and laid across the top of the sleeping bag that was rolled out across the floor. A sheet was somewhere in knots by his feet, but once he laid his swimming head down, it seemed nearly impossible to pick it back up again.

He had nearly fallen asleep when the air mattress a few feet away from him cried under the squirm of a body. “Maybe we can give it a go.”

His heart kicked in his chest when the hoarse voice of his brother reached him in the dark. He didn't answer for a long time, his brain not giving him any words worthy enough to be spoken out loud. Sam must have thought he was asleep or didn't hear him because he called out him name in hopes of getting a response. “You're going to have to do it, Sammy,” he swallowed the crack that threatened to break his voice.

In hyper-detail, Dean listened to the mattress groan again over the sound of his own heart beating in his ears before Sam's bare feet fell flat against the ground. It was getting hard to breathe. Every step that Sam's feet slapped into the hard wood floor tightened iron bars around Dean's chest. The slick material of the sleeping bag swished together as Sam laid down next to his brother and Dean's palms were heavy with moister, the inside of his mouth dry, his stomach pumped full of adrenaline.

Sam was breathing just as heavily as he was, his chest fluttering under short exhales.

Dean almost flinched when a finger skimmed along the underside of his jaw, skirting around to the back of his head and turning him with barely-there pressure. Sam's breath was hot and heavy against his face, the brush of his nose against Dean's something wild and foreign. Dean waited for some sort of pressure against his mouth, his eyes falling shut just as Sam pulled away, far enough for the room's cool air to blow across Dean face. He heard himself whine somewhere deep in his throat before he was pawing at Sam's shirt, filling his fist full of the worn cotton as he urged him back towards him. He was almost certain he was going to say please, but he hear himself whisper “Don't,” when he thought Sam was turning away.

It was another long moment before Sam's lips were trembling over his. He waited for Sam to move forward, to curl his hand back around his neck and pull him forward, but the pressure of his mouth lessened to a whisper before it was gone completely.

 


	4. Chapter 4

 

In the morning, Dean woke up to an empty room and the smell of bacon. Despite the promise the smell provided, there wasn't any evidence of a breakfast ever being made besides the dirty skillet in the sink. The clock on the wall read 10:47. Maybe if he'd hurry, he'd be able to catch lunch at school with Sam.

By the time he had found a clean pair of jeans, driven through town and parked in the school lot, he had a few minutes to spare so he shrugged his empty backpack into his shoulders and strode into the building. He found Sam's class easily, propping himself up against the wall opposite of the classroom door with one leg on the wall and a hand in his pocket.

It was a little while after the bell rang until Sam's teacher let them out of class. He almost didn't see him lounging against the wall, but his head popped up when a girl down the hall called out a hello to Dean. “Hey Sammy,” he smiled, somewhere between a genuine grin and the cheeky smirk he flashed at girls.

 

“Dean, what're you doing here?” he asked as his brother hooked an arm around his neck.

 

“Oh you know, just had a little cabin fever,” he bowed his face close to Sam's. “How's about you and me blow this pop stand, duckie. We can go drive down to that McDonald’s I saw off the high way on the way into this shit hole.”

 

* * *

 

After a little convincing and a touch of forceful steering, Dean got Sam out of school and into the car – he even let him pick the music. “I don't know why, but I really woke up craving a cheesburger.”

 

“When aren't you?” Sam laughed, rolling his window down and propping his legs up on the empty frame.

 

“An age old question, brother.”

 

The Impala thrived at high speeds. Her engine opened up and her vibrations echoed right up though Dean's chest. That's where he belonged: out on the open road with Sam at his elbow. As much as he would have loved to keep driving forever, to have her tires touch every stretch of road in America, he knew Sam would sooner tuck and roll right out of the moving vehicle. That's how they were different and sometimes Dean failed to understand his need to settle down in one place for a while. To him, to Dean, the motion was security, not the threat of being found.

But eventually, for Sam's sake and for the sake of his gurgling intestines, he pulled off the exit that had a sign before it promising all the greasy fast food a traveling soul could ever crave.

As he took his foot off the accelerator and the car whined her way down to lower gears, Sam took his feet off the window frame and cracked his neck. Dean parked even though there was a drive through because somehow going in and sitting down was more of an event.

At the counter, a tired teenage girl's eyes lit up at the sight of Sam as she leaned across the linoleum barrier and asked him what he'd like. “I'll have a cheeseburger,” Dean stepped across her line of site and smiled sharply. She hummed and plugged his order into the register, turning back to Sam. He ordered a salad and a large ice tea before Dean stepped in front of him again and paid for everything with a fifty. Why? He wasn't entirely sure.

He ushered Sam to a booth in the far back corner, the only one that was blocked from the cashier's view by a very obtrusive pillar. The plastic seats were uncomfortable and he was pretty sure he just put his hand on gum that was stuck under the table, but Sam had his hips settled at the edge of the bench so their knees were brushing and their ankles were locked, so he wasn't really worried about it. He was too busy tapping salt packets against the table so the little grains wouldn't scatter everywhere then he opened them to notice the heat creeping up his neck or the kick of his heart in his chest and wrists and throat.

When they were called a few minutes later when their food was ready, he jumped up so fast his knees jerked and hit the table, the metal legs clattering loudly. He made his way to the front, briefly forgetting how to walk with the burn of Sam's eyes on his back. “Here's your salad, m'lady,” he smirked as he set the plastic bowl down in front of his brother. Sam didn't even have a retort as he ripped into the wrapping around the plastic fork Dean had picked up for him.

 

“So are we going to talk about it?” Sam asked just as Dean took his first bite. 

He nearly choked, his eyes watering and he vaguely wondered why he always took bites of food big enough to choke a horse. “Dude,” He said through the food, chewing a few more times, “Weren't you the one –”

 

“I know, I know I said I didn't want to talk about it, but that was before...” he poked at his salad, mixing the dressing in with the iceberg lettuce.

 

“Well,” Dean finally swallowed before sipping at his soda. “Go ahead and talk.”

 

Once Dean gave him the opportunity, words seemed to have failed him because he opened his mouth before snapping it shut again, softly shaking his head and trailing his fingers along the sticky tabletop. “I guess we'll just see what happens.”

 

Once they got back to the house, the sun was setting, hot red and almost soft to the touch. The metallic slam of the Impala's door rang through the nearly empty lot as they got out and stood beside the car, each waiting for the other to move. Eventually Dean stepped gently through the gravel driveway, his heels dragging as he looked up at Sam through heavy brows. “Hey,” he gave him a half smile, his hands in his pockets and his shoulders slumped heavily.

 

“Hey,” Sam let out a breathy laugh, bumping his fist into Dean's arm casually.

 

“Well, uh,” Dean nodded towards the door. “Shall we?”

 

Dean fumbled with his keys at the door, the buzz of Sam behind his making his fingers shake. The lighting indoors was dim, making all the walls and furniture soft and fuzzy as his eye site settled enough for him to find his way to the lamp sitting beside the couch. When he reached under the shade and turned the switch, he looked over his shoulder to find Sam rocking on the balls of his feet behind him. “It's a one man job Sammy, but thanks for the moral support,” he chuckled at his own joke but his smile fell with the pressure of Sam's hands on his face. He looked up at him and into those brilliant hazel eyes, wondering when he had to start looking _up_ at his baby brother, before he cocked his head and held himself there, waiting for Dean to be the one to reach out and close the space. Dean's eyes flicked down to Sam's mouth, all slack and slick with moister. He bit at his own bottom lip, watching Sam's eyelids fall shut before he kissed him, soft and slow and careful, like Sam was some sort of deer that would spook easy.

He broke it with a gentle smack, their noses still touching and at that distance with the harsh yellow light from the lamp, he could make out whispers of freckles across the bridge of his nose, against the bruising under his eyes, decorating the skin just above where his eyelashes grew. He took Sam head and tilted it down, kissing his closed eyes, trying to taste the cinnamon color of the freckles that touched his lips. Sam sighed and moved his body into Dean's, his arms hanging around his waist, their chests rising in time with each other.

Dean kissed him again, fuller and wetter and deeper, his fingers trailing under the hem of Sam's shirt, the skin of his stomach burning the pads of Dean's fingers.

 


End file.
